Category: Propaganda

I am obsessed with reading. I have probably learnt most of the things I know through reading. In a world where naivety and hatred are prominent, I believe education is vitally important in changing opinions and making people think and reading is a great place to start. A few of my friends have recently asked for book recommendations, so here we go.

I am an avid reader of political non-fiction books as well as political fiction books. Not everything I read has to be true but it has to be thought provoking. So, below are some of my favourite books from the past year or so and the reasons why.

The Lightless Sky, Gulwali Passarlay

The quickest I’ve read a book in a long time. This book is a MUST read if you care about refugees, children or just humanity in general. It puts all the horrors refugees and asylum seekers face on their journey to Europe in stone. Its everything you sort of knew but didn’t think you could face, yet you have to. Not only does it talk about the brutality and unfortunate necessity of human smugglers, it faces friendship and heartbreak perfectly. My favourite thing about this book is its so real and every word in it is relatable for far too many people around the world. Also, Gulwali is from Afghanistan – a place that I hold constantly in my thoughts. It explains why (young) people have to leave the country – a state declared technically safe these days – and how parents must make the hardest decision of their lives. It places the perfect disconnect between ‘East’ and ‘West’ and highlights the sheer difference in culture between Afghanistan and Europe. The honesty in this book deserves an award in itself.

The book also mentions my favourite subject – the bureaucracy of systems in the UK. The immigration system, age assessments and dealing with social services, accessing education and, mental health. The biggest mistake people make is realising that just because someone is ‘safe’ now they’re in the UK, doesn’t mean they can miraculously forget everything they’ve seen.

Gulwali is a true inspiration. He’s pretty much the same age as me and I can’t even comprehend going through what he went through and achieving everything he has achieved.

There is one sentence in this book that will sit with me forever: “By sending me away, she definitely saved her son, but she also lost him”.

Seriously, go read this book. NOW.

2. The Last Kestrel, Gill McGivering

This book is most certainly a thought provoker – especially for the western centric thinkers. This fiction book based on non-fiction set in Afghanistan is about a journalist called Ellen Thomas whose Afghan Pashto translator, Jalil is suddenly murdered and she is determined to find out why. The book finds itself in the midst of three sides; NATO (British) forces, the Taliban and an innocent Afghan family. The book perfectly voices two different view points to the conflict and the NATO forces. Now, I thought it was going to be a stereotypical western book about Afghanistan. But the ending shocks you. It makes you think – well it certainly made me think – of the Afghan war in a completely different way. It puts a perfect spin on the possibilities of lies and indoctrination, of western propaganda. It represents a mothers revenge that, given events, seems only natural. And I loved every second of it.

3. Mornings in Jenin, Susan Abdulhawa

I love anything Palestinian and this book was no different. This book kicked the life out of me on more than one occasion. Although it is ‘fiction’ , its technically fact. The book discusses the 1948 Nakba from a very real, human perspective, making the whole situation almost unimaginable. The book follows a girl Amal, who has two younger brothers – one of whom gets snatched by an Israeli soldier. This brother, grows up thinking he is Israeli until he has an intense run in with his twin brother at a checkpoint. Amal ends up as a refugee from the 1967 war, leaving the Jenin refugee camp that she called home behind and ending up in a girls orphanage in Jerusalem. Susan’s writing is incredible at creating images – I could, and still can, physically see the refugee camp and the orphanage. Amal, eventually moves to America – where she becomes Amy – and lives a completely different life. This book leaves me speechless. It is so so important and so real for so many – it faces losing an identity in so many, multifaceted ways its hard to comprehend.

4. The Blue Between Sky and Water, Susan Abdulhawa

I said that the last book hit me hard, this one hits you harder. Its pretty brutal from the start as it talks of a families run for survival in 1948 from their village of Beit Daras for a refugee camp in southern Gaza. It vividly describes rape at the hands of Israeli soldiers and the differences between the experiences of the Baraka family depending on their age and awareness. The book starts off following the family who fled to the refugee camp in Gaza before introducing Nur, a Palestinian American who ends up in Gaza to visit her family. This book has one significant difference to any others – its ‘magical’ element in the form of 10 year old Khaled who is the blue between sky and water as you hear his voice before he is born and then when he is dead. Khaled is the spiritual element that ties this book together. This book has constant surprises – it’s s complex, you just have to read it and find out for yourself. I promise you, you won’t regret a thing about it.

Susan Abdulhawa is without a doubt one of my favourite authors of all time. Her ability to bring things to life, spur the imagination and inspire you are things I have never found in another author.

5. Burnt Shadows, Kamila Shamsie

I was incredibly confused by the blurb of this book yet it intrigued me to read it. Starting in Nagasaki, this book then goes to India, Turkey, Pakistan, New York and Afghanistan. How? Go read it and you’ll find out. This book follows various people (all of whom are intertwined in some way or another) on their journey in search of identity and belonging. Its hard to say too much about it without giving anything away. Identity and belonging is incredibly important in todays world with many refusing to accept ‘foreigners’, ‘immigrants’ or ‘refugees’ yet this book frames it so slyly yet prominently as not to hit you straight on. If you want find out about how a child, living in Pakistan that is half Japanese and half Indian ends up in Afghanistan pretending to be a Hazara in a Mujaheddin Pashto training camp, you have to read it.

6. The Orphan Masters Son, Adam Johnson

Probably the weirdest book I’ve read in the last few years. I was drawn to it as its set in North Korea and Adam Johnson has actually been to North Korea. The book is about a North Korean intelligence officer onboard a fishing ship and everything about it makes it seem like a biography. The book follows Jun Do who grows up in an orphanage yet believes he is the son of the orphan master. The book has a strong theme of propaganda – theres a lot of government discussion – and deceit as well as identity and brutality and politics in North Korea. Yet its also very bizarre. Jun Do somehow ends up working his way up the military and ends up on a trip to America. Jun Do ends up in America because (I’m not quite sure how) he ends up impersonating the famous leader (in terms of the book) Commander Ga, a military hero and then sets up the escape from North Korea of Commander Ga’s family – the famous singer, Sun Moon and her family. Again, this book is written in such a way that you can imagine being there. How an orphan masters apparent son ends up going through all this – who knows. Its such a strange read yet pure brilliance.